Palo Alto, Calif. - The Facebook online social network on Wednesday announced that it will make its controversial Beacon marketing feature completely optional for the service's 55 million members.

Some users complained of breaches of privacy, as the service announces the purchases that members make at partner retail sites to a user's friends on Facebook.

Several advocacy groups had also complained to the Federal Trade Commission.

"We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we've made even more with how we've handled them," Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote on the company's blog.

"We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it."

The company released a privacy control on Wednesday, available at a link below, which Facebook members can use to "turn off Beacon completely."

Related Links:
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=7584397130

http://www.facebook.com/privacy.php?view=unconfirmed_actions